MYTHOLOGY AND FOLKLORE
EXHIBITION
 Pityby William Blake Date: 1975 Art medium: Ink and water colour painting Art movement: Romanticism |  Perseus Slaying the Dragonby Felix Vallotton Date: 1910 Art medium: Oil painting on canvas Art movement: Neoclassicism |  A Mermaidby John William Waterhouse Date: 1900 Art medium: Oil painting on canvas Art movement: Romanticism |
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 The Hero with the Wingby Paul Klee Date: 1905 Art medium: Etching and drypoint Art movement: German expressionism |  Circe Invidiosaby John William Waterhouse Date: 1892 Art medium: Oil painting on canvas Art movement: Romanticism |  Saturn Devouring His Sonby Francisco Goya Date: 1819-1823 Art medium: Oil painting on canvas Art movement: Romanticism |
 The Nightmareby Henry Fuseli Date: 1781 Art medium: Oil painting on canvas Art movement: Romanticism |  Jupiter and Thetisby Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres Date: 1811 Art medium: Oil painting on canvas Art movement: Neoclassism |  Diana and Cupidby Pompeo Batoni Date: 1761 Art medium: Oil painting on canvas Art movement: Baroque |
 Apollo and Daphneby Gian Lorenzo Bernini Date: 1622-1625 Art medium: Marble sculpture Art movement: Baroque |  Medusaby Caravaggio Date: 1597 Art medium: Oil painting on canvas mounted on wood Art movement: Baroque |  Narcissusby Caravaggio Date: 1597–1599 Art medium: Oil painting on canvas Art movement: Baroque |
One of Bernini’s most famous works takes form in this life-sized sculpture which explores themes of lust and desire. Inspired by a legend from book I of Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Apollo and Daphne captures a tragic story of unrequited love between Apollo, a sun god, and Daphne, a mere nymph. In the book, Apollo is wounded by cupid’s arrow and falls hopelessly in love with a passing-by river nymph, Daphne. However, she has declared herself eternally chaste and refuses his advances. Apollo is ruthless in his pursuit, and in an act of desperation, Daphne pleads with her father, a river god, to make her ugly in an attempt to escape her relentless admirer. Her father concedes and transforms Daphne into a laurel tree. The sculpture captures the fleeing nymph in the process of metamorphosis where her toes have taken root, her flesh turned to bark, and her hair to leaves and her arms to branches. Bernini has been praised for his ability to catch a perfectly transient moment so beautifully in the unforgiving and solid medium of marble.
Saturn Devouring His Son was one of a series of fourteen paintings that Goya painted on the walls of his villa at Quinto del Sordo over the years 1819 to 1823. Commonly referred to as the “Black Paintings”, the common thread was the horrifying, intriguing and macabre imagery portrayed in all fourteen artworks. Painted and produced during a dark time in Goya’s life, the “Black Paintings” are believed to be a reflection of his mental state at the time, after his bout with illness which resulted in a loss of hearing as well as internal strife and unrest in Spain. The artworks were transferred to canvas after Goya’s death. In particular, Saturn Devouring His Son depicts the Greek myth of the titan Saturn, who fearing that he would be overthrown by one of his children, ate each one of them upon birth. However, one son, Jupiter, escapes this grisly end and successfully dethrones his father. Saturn, the mythological god could be the personification of the very real human fear of losing one’s power and the notion of fate as being inevitable.
Medusa executed by Caravaggio, was commissioned as a ceremonial shield by Cardinal Franceso Maria Del Monte. The figure of Medusa, symbolising triumph of reason over senses, was meant to commemorate Grand Duke of Tuskany’s courgage in defeating his enemies. The timeless Greek myth depicts Medusa as a terrifying female Gorgon monster with a mane of venomous serpents for hair. It is believed that she was so repulsive that anybody who gazed upon her was instantly turned to stone. Meanwhile, goddess Athena presented fearless Greek hero, Perseus, with a reflective mirror-like shield, and challenged him to kill Medusa and bring her head back to her when he succeeded. Perseus used his reflective shield to avoid her deadly gaze and beheaded her. In Carravaggio’s interpretation of this legend, Medusa is painted frozen in a moment of shock and self-recognition after realising she had been defeated. Her head, although severed from the rest of her body, carries an expression of horror and disbelief as she had thought herself to be invincible until the very moment.
The ancient Greek myth of Narcissus tells of a handsome but vain young man so in love with his own reflection that he meets a tragic end. Narcissus, celebrated for his beauty and good looks, attracted a generous following of admirers. However, he thought all his suitors to be unworthy of him, and in his arrogance, spurned them all. When Nemesis, goddess of revenge learned of Narcissus’ spiteful ways, she decided to punish him by luring him to a pool where he saw his own reflection. He instantly fell irrevocably in love with himself. Caravaggio’s thought-provoking painting captures the vain and conceited Narcissus gazing at his own reflection in the pool, entranced. Unable to tear himself away from the figure in the pool, Narcissus sat by the stream admiring his reflected paramour in vain, neglecting to even eat or drink. It was this way that Narcissus wasted away and died, and upon his death, left behind a beautiful yellow flower, which still carries his name today. In an alternate ending to the myth Narcissus plunges to his watery death and drowns in an attempt to embrace the figure in the pool. Narcissus appears to be locked in a circular boundary formed by his arms, shrouded in darkness, which could represent the endless and depreciating cycle of self-love. This flawed Greek mythological character has given rise to the term “narcissist”, which is still commonly used today to describe individuals with traits of vanity, ego and self-absorption.
The Hero with the Wing depicts a folkloric character of a man who is part bird, part nature. Ironically, with a missing left wing and one broken arm in a sling, the “hero” invokes more pity than awe in observers. As a result of his futile attempts to fly, - as one of his legs, a tree trunk roots him to the ground - the tragicomic hero has broken all his other limbs. Despite all the setbacks he has faced, he stands tall on a pedestal, noble and proud, his steady, upward gaze exuding a kind of unwavering determination. Observers empathise with and admire the resilience of this tragic hero, so hungry of what he cannot achieve. Klee himself was fascinated with the notion of flight and aviation, which provided inspiration for his artwork. In fact, The Hero with the Wing was created two years after the Wright brother’s successful pioneer flight in 1903. One of Klee’s pioneer art pieces, this bizarre, intricately detailed etch is a travesty of the conventional aesthetic ideals and strict social expectations of the period.
Waterhouse examines themes of envy, revenge and scorn in his painting Circe Indiviosa or Jealous Circe. In Greek mythology, Circe was a goddess of magic and sorcery who enchanted men with her beauty, only to transform them into pigs later on. She found pleasure in manipulating and using the men who sought after her. One day, however, Glaucus, a majestic sea god, approached Circe for help in winning over Scylla, a sea goddess with whom he had fallen deeply in love with. Glaucus was the one man who was not taken by Circe’s charm and she quickly grew jealous. Adamant about the fact that there was a man who did not desire her, she grew angry and decided to take revenge on innocent Scylla by transforming her into a hideous sea monster. Waterhouse depicts goddess Circe in the act of pouring toxic green poison into the stream where Scylla was accustomed to bathe, her face seething with grim determination and intensity. At her feet, the tentacles of her already transformed love rival writhe beneath the water’s surface.
The legend of the mermaid originates from ancient Greek mythology of a beautiful aquatic creature with the head and body of a woman but the tail of a fish. While some stories depict mermaids as benevolent, playful and shy creatures, curious about life on land, others warn of evil mermaids who lure sailors to their death with their beauty. Waterhouse captures the defencelessness of a beautiful mermaid sitting upon the rocks on the water’s edge as a “fish out of water” in the truest sense of the phrase. With no legs or feet, this female creature is leaving herself completely immobile and exposed by sitting out of water. The vulnerability and femininity with which Waterhouse presents the mermaid, gazing dreamily into the distance and combing her long, luxurious hair draws the observer in. There is a sort of mystery and allure about her as she seems either oblivious or unaffected by any potential onlooker’s presence.
Blake often drew inspiration for his art from Biblical events or Shakespearean plays. Pity, an illustration of a double simile found in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, is no exception:
“And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, hors'd
Upon the sightless couriers of the air.” (Macbeth, 1:21–23)
In Blake’s interpretation, a female cherub leans down from her flying Pegasus to snatch a baby from its mother, who is laying lifelessly on the ground. Cherubs are mythical, winged ethereal beings, believed to be baby angels and attendants to God, while Pegasus refer to winged horses in ancient Greek mythology. Pity by Blake was successful in capturing the themes “[w]eakness and vengeance, human fallibility and the supernatural…” (Holtham, 2013) that manifested in the thoughts of Macbeth.
In Perseus Slaying the Dragon, Vallotton depicts the Greek myth of Perseus, a fearless hero, rescuing Andromeda, princess of Ethopia, from a fearsome sea monster as well as embodies societal clichés of gender roles. Perseus is seen – bulging muscles, dominant stance and all – thrusting a sword into the fearsome sea monster while Andromeda cowers away. As the story goes, Andromeda’s mother, Queen Cassiopeia had offended the sea nymphs, the Nereids with her boastful proclamation that she was more beautiful than they were. Enraged by her arrogance and audacity, the Nereids appealed to Poseidon, the sea god to punish the queen for her spitefulness. In response, Poseidon threatened to send a huge flood as well as a sea monster to destroy the kingdom of Ethiopia. Fearing the wrath of the sea gods and in an attempt to save his kingdom, Andromeda’s father, King Cepheus resorted to offering his daughter as sacrifice to be devoured by the sea monster. However, as a distressed Andromeda lay chained to the sea rocks, awaiting her fate, Perseus happened to sail by and immediately fell in love with her beauty. He rescued her and asked for her hand in marriage in the end.
Commissioned by Sir Humphrey Morice, Diana and Cupid is widely considered one of Batoni’s finest paintings. It depicts a scene of Diana, mythological Roman goddess of the hunt, holding the bow of Cupid away from his reach. Diana, being one of the maiden goddesses, had taken a vow of chastity and abstinence from marriage. On the other hand, Cupid, the Greek mythological god of love, is often associated with lust and passion, and has the ability to make people fall in love with each other with his bow and arrow. The contrast between Cupid and Diana’s system of beliefs adds an interesting element of conflict between morality and individual desire to the painting. In this situation, chaste Diana appears to have the ruling authority in denying an overeager Cupid his power. Batoni portrays her as a compassionate teacher, who with grace and firm patience, guides unruly children from straying from the path of righteousness.
Eerie yet hauntingly beautiful, The Nightmare by Henry Fuselli has been a subject shrouded in controversy speculation and over its true meaning. The painting seems to portray a dreaming woman as well as the source of her nightmare simultaneously. A sleeping woman dressed in white is draped over the end of a bed, while a demonic incubus sits upon her chest, peering out at the observer. Incubi were products of medieval folklore and superstition, widely believed to be responsible for nightmares, sleep paralysis and night terrors. Defined as “an imaginary demon or evil spirit supposed to descend upon sleeping persons”, or “something that weighs upon or oppresses one like a nightmare”, Fuseli demonstrates the meanings of “incubus” both literally and figuratively, since the incubus is perched atop the woman’s chest as well as weighing upon her dreams.
Ingres brings the key moment of Homer's Iliad to life in his depiction of Jupiter and Thetis. In the midst of the landscape of Mount Olympus, Thetis, a mere nymph, begs the mighty God, Jupiter, for the life of her son Achilles. She pleads him to intervene by making the Greeks repent of their injustice to Achilles by granting success to the enemy Trojan army. With the effective use of body language and magnification, Ingres contrasts the power of the two characters beautifully. Jupiter towers above Thetis, sitting rigid and erect upon his throne, gazing straight ahead at the observer, stony faced. In contrast, Thetis is crumpled in a heap at his feet and emotion pours over her face, manifesting in her contorted posture as she caresses Jupiter’s face in desperation. Her exposed flesh is also a sign of her vulnerability and weakness.
